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A key ingredient of concrete, portland cement is integral to the construction of sustainable and economical structures. Commercial and residential buildings, highways, bridges, airports, dams and other critical elements of our nation's infrastructure count on its strength and energy performance.
As part of its ongoing commitment to raise awareness and understanding of the importance of cement and concrete to sustainable building solutions, the Portland Cement Association (PCA) has identified local leaders in eight cities across the nation who have enacted policies or completed projects that promote sustainable development through the use of concrete and other cement-based products.
"As demand continues to increase, our government leaders and the cement and concrete industry have important roles to play as we determine how to best meet our nation's development needs while protecting and sustaining the environment for future generations," said PCA President and CEO Brian McCarthy. "The PCA Sustainable Leadership Award winners have made great strides in balancing those priorities in a number of innovative and cost-effective ways."
The 2008 Winners
Leadership in Sustainability Policy
Honors officials who advance policies that promote the concept of sustainable development by advocating for and promoting the use of concrete- and cement-based products in their communities.
Winner: Richard J. Daley, Mayor; Sadhu Aufochs Johnston, Chief Environmental Officer, Mayor's Office; City of Chicago, Ill.
Policy: "Greening" the City of Chicago -- Supporting and incentivizing green economic development by implementing a number of programs including Green Alley Program, Chicago Green Homes and Green Roof Grant Program.
Winner: Department of Street Services, City of Dallas, Texas
Policy: Sustainable rehabilitation, restoration and partial reconstruction of Dallas streets -- Instituting a program, in keeping with the City's "Environmental Policy" for ongoing rehabilitation, restoration and partial reconstruction of city streets, saving approximately 40 percent per lane mile economically, and reusing an average of 80 percent of existing street materials.
Homes and Residential Building Projects
Honors officials who utilize concrete and other cement-based products to build homes and residential buildings that are energy efficient and beneficial to the community.
Winner: Brad Reed, Inspection Coordinator; City of Lubbock, Texas
Project: 100th ICF house (HUD funded HOME project) -- Construction of low-income housing using insulating concrete forms (ICF) wall systems provides superior construction technology at an affordable price and significant reductions in energy usage.
Winner: Dennis C. Kilfoil, Executive Director, Marion County Housing Authority; Salem, Ore.
Project: Hazelwood Estates, Woodburn, Ore. -- ICF wall systems were chosen for sound attenuation, fire resistance and to minimize long-term maintenance and minimize energy requirements.
Infrastructure Projects
Honors officials who utilize concrete and other cement-based products in public works projects such as highways, streets, bridges, dams, pipe or water systems and more that are beneficial to the community.
Winner: Najib Fares, PE; Infrastructure Manager, Transportation & Public Works Department; City of Fort Worth, Texas
Project: Annual street maintenance program for the city of Fort Worth -- Full depth reclamation (FDR) was used to save construction time, money and natural resources while providing long-term performance solutions.
Winner: Peggy J. Dunn, Mayor; Joe C. Johnson, Director of Public Works, Leawood; Leawood, Kan.
Project: Pervious concrete parking lot in I-Lan Park -- The location of the parking lot, near a creek, raised concern about erosion and flooding. By using pervious concrete, rainfall on the lot will be held until it is either absorbed into the ground or evaporates, and the concrete will act as a filter to clean the stormwater that falls into the lot. The parking lot is designed to last for at least 20 years with little, if any, maintenance required.
Winner: Kurtis J. Grassett, Director of Public Works; Hancock, N.H.
Project: Rebuilding of Antrim Road using FDR with cement -- With limited resources and an abundance of springtime floods, an innovative solution for rebuilding a flood-prone road while reducing Hancock, N.H.'s carbon footprint was the use full depth reclamation (FDR) with cement.
Winner: Elaine M, Scruggs, Mayor; Horatio Skeete, Deputy City Manager; Cathy Colbath, Transit Administrator; City of Glendale, Ariz.
Project: Park and ride parking lot project using pervious concrete -- Concrete was chosen as a key component in this project to encourage carpool, vanpool and bus usage in Glendale because it addresses water retention issues, mitigates heat island effect, allows plants on the site to thrive, and is expected to save money over the length of the project as it is not likely to need to be resurfaced for more than 20 years.
To learn more about the Award and sustainable development benefits made possible by concrete, visit http://www.cement.org.
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The NBA deadline has come and past with a few major moves and plenty that don't really matter other than money. So while everyone and their dog are ranking/grading the trades, I thought I better do the same – or something close to that.
Instead of giving an A or something I will try to determine why the move made sense or not. And if you disagree, please feel free to tell me why.
The Big Deals
1. Antawn Jamison to the Cleveland
There are more players involved, but this is the only one that matters. With Zydrunas Ilgauskas more than likely getting bought out and returning to Cleveland, the trade ends up like this.
- Cleveland receives: Jamison. From the Clippers – Sebastian Telfair – don't forget the Clippers are involved here.
- Washington receives: From the Cavs – 2010 first-round pick and the rights to Emir Preldzic. From the Clippers – Al Thornton from the Clippers.
- Los Angles receives: Drew Gooden from the Wizards.
Why does this make sense for the Cavs? They get Jamison for a first-round pick that would likely be no higher than 30, and some guy named Emir Preldzic who was the Cavs second round pick last year. The Cavs make this trade for one reason that leads into more reasons. The main reason – To keep LeBron James, and hopefully win a few rings. This trade also makes way more sense then the Amar'e trade – Jamison just seems like the right type of player, but also the right personality to fit in with this group.
Why does this make sense for the Wizards? If you are going to blow things up – do it big and fast. This team was going no where and while this is horrible for the 15 fans in Washington, it makes financial sense for front-office.
Side Note – I watch the Wolves vs. Wizards game the other night. There we more people on the floor and benches then there were in the stands – sad.
I also wonder if this a little jab at Gilbert Arenas and forcing him to seek a trade – look out New York. I mean, the guy cripples you with his contract AND his behavior. Destroys the team and I doubt he will want to come back , and I can not blame him.
Why does this make sense for the Clippers? It does not for this season. But what about next season? The only way this works is if the Clippers really think they can get a max-level player in this summer. And it is an appealing option for a talented free agent. Baron Davis, Blake Griffin, Chris Kaman, Eric Gordon, Travis Oulaw, Steve Blake, and Drew Gooden provide a pretty solid team to lead. I am not saying LeBron is coming, but maybe Joe Johnson.
2. Tracy McGrady to Sacramento New York
We knew McGrady had no future in Houston. What we did not know was where he would land and what Houston would get in return. And by most accounts, Houston walked away with more than the brought to the party.
- Houston receives: From New York – Jared Jefferies, Jordan Hill, and a protected 2012 first-round pick and the right to exchange first-round picks in 2011. From Sacramento – Kevin martin and Hilton Armstrong.
- Sacramento receives: From Houston – Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey. From New York – Larry Hughes.
- New York receives: From Houston – Tracy McGrady. From Sacramento – Sergio Rodriquez.
Why does this make sense for the Rockets? Really? There can't be much question as to why this works. You trade a player who wasn't playing and has the largest salary this season. You get a lottery pick in Hill, and good player in Jefferies, two picks from NY – which could be high picks AND Kevin Martin. Upgrade!
Why does this make sense for the Kings? The Kings leadership must have seen enough of Tyreke Evans to make him the franchise and unload their best player in Martin for Landry, Dorsey, and Hughes expiring contract. But this moves clears a lot of cap space to allow for signing a top tier player to a max deal, or couple of really good pieces. I guess this years team will have time to gel, and play into a top-five pick.
Why does this make sense for the Knicks? Next season, the Knicks only have $18.6M in salaries. Meaning more space to make offers to LeBron and another max player – i.e. Chris Bosh. But they also need to fill a roster that would not include David Lee, Eddie House, Al Harrington or McGrady or any first round picks for three years. No matter what, the Knicks needed to cut salary for a team that had a $80M+ payroll.
3. Caron Butler to Dallas
This was the first big move and was the first example of how the Wizards are very giving and want to help solidify other teams as prime playoff contenders.
- Dallas receives: Caron Butler, Brendon Haywood, DeShawn Stevenson and cash.
- Washington receives: Josh Howard, Drew Gooden, James Singleton and Quinton Ross.
Why does this make sense for the Mavs? Dallas has never been mistaking for a team with an attitude or chip on their shoulder. And a lot of times, teams with an attitude, win championships. As the Mavs roll into the last few years of the Dirk era, owner Mark Cuben knows that time is running out on this team.
Howard was not the player he once was, and didn't seem to care, and the Mavs really had no need for Gooden. With this trade, the Mavs get some grit and a much more capable team. Plus with Erik Dampier's outrageous contract coming to a team options for $13M, the team can let him go and resign Haywood for much less money.
Why does this make sense for the Wizards? Just like the deal with the Cavs, this trade has nothing to do with the players involved, only their contracts. And this has even less to do with this season. I am not sure what the Wizards leadership is going to do, but supposedly they want to KEEP Arenas. I understand that he is not what you would call a hot name, but but he will be if the Wizards are able to void his contract.
Other Deals
1. The only other deal that matter at was the Knicks sending Nate Robinson to the Celtics for Eddie House. Here is the deal: Traded G Nate Robinson and F Marcus Landry to Boston for G Eddie House, G J.R. Giddens, G-F Bill Walker and a future conditional second-round pick. ? It will be interesting.
2. Homer side-Note: The Wolves were active again, sending Brain Cardinal's expiring contract to New York for Darko Milicic's expiring contract and cash. Stupid – but no harm, no foul.
3. The last deal that is one worth mentioning is Chicago trading Tyrus Thomas for a future first-round draft pick, G Flip Murray and G Acie Law from Charlotte. Again, this move is not about players, but Chicago's ability to offer Dwayne Wade and another max level player – i.e. Chris Bosh – a contract. But I like Thomas and Larry Brown should break him down and maybe make an actual NBA player out of him.

subset: commoncrawl


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Adam 'Pacman' Jones -- Arrested for Allegedly Ripping Into Cops During DUI Stop
Adam 'Pacman' Jones Arrested Allegedly Ripped Cops During DUI Stop
Adam "Pacman" Jones -- aka the NFL's version of DMX -- was arrested again, this time during a DUI stop where he wasn't even the suspect ... for once.
Jones was the passenger in a car Ohio State Patrol pulled over early Monday morning -- and he reportedly mouthed off to officers while they were conducting a field sobriety test on the woman was driving.
The Cincinnati Bengals' star cornerback was arrested for disorderly conduct and released. The driver was also arrested for OVI ... operating a vehicle impaired.
Jones has a string of legal issues -- 8 arrests since entering the league 2005 -- and could be suspended by the league or the team for this latest one.
Most recently he was caught on surveillance cameras hitting a woman outside a nightclub back in June -- and already has an Oct. 7 court date for that case.
Waiting for your permission to load the comments.


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How I participated in the forth challenge. I went to Free Rice and I got 2160 grains of rice. Below is how many I got today and how much I got in all. When I do this I feel very good because I am
making a difference in life. I like how young kids (like me) can make a difference in life. I love Free Rice because it helps others and ourselves learn.
Have you been to Free Rice?
How many grains have you gotten?
Do you feel like you making a difference n life?


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New London superintendent offers dire warning about middle school boiler
New London - After a boiler at the Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School failed on Jan. 24, the Capitol Region Education Council warned the city that its failure to maintain the boilers may have created a serious fire hazard. But on Thursday, Superintendent Nicholas A. Fischer said the boiler could have exploded and cautioned that the school's entire heating system needs to be fixed or replaced immediately.
"The state boiler inspector who came down (in January) said that the boiler could have exploded," Fischer said. "There is more than a half million dollars of repair work that needs to be done to the pipes, the heater system and the pumps that go into the boilers."
Gas leaks, caused by a contractor who ruptured a connection to the boiler, created the danger, he said. The issue was raised at a meeting of the Board of Education's School Facilities and Program Design Committee Thursday evening.
For 20 years, Fischer said, the system has been neglected as a result of value engineering. Now, the building is on the verge of a total failure.
"You have a system that on any given day could fail," Fischer said.
"What is going to happen if it does fail is that there is going to be a lot of finger-pointing, so I want this board to be very clear that for more than a year and a half now, we have been talking to the school building maintenance committee, we've been talking to the city, about the danger of this."
Though the gas leaks have been repaired, Fischer estimated that there is an 80 percent chance of a failure in the boiler system at the school. Further, he stressed that if these problems are not addressed as soon as possible, someone could be seriously injured.
Fischer urged Board of Education members to reach out to the City Council to determine how the city will tackle the problem.
"If there is water in that pool down where the transformer is, it could electrocute an employee. If a custodian walking into that boiler room (on Jan. 24) had sparked something, that boiler would have exploded. Kids would get hurt," he said. "At some point or another, as a city and as a community, we need to start taking this stuff seriously."
Jason Catala, chairman of the school facilities committee, said that he is not confident that the school is safe for students.
"I wouldn't be able to send my child off to school knowing there is an 80 percent chance of a safety issue," he said. "I need to study the issue further to see if (the superintendent) is using scare tactics, but I'm very concerned because the safety of our children should be the most important thing."
But Fischer said the school remains safe for students. If the system does fail and the school cannot be occupied, Fischer said, classes could be moved to the National Guard armory on Bayonet Street.
In 2010, two new boilers were installed at Bennie Dover at a cost of about $390,000.
Also at the committee meeting, school system Chief of Operations Timothy MacDuff announced that the sprinkler system at Harbor School has been flushed and passed its latest inspection "with flying colors."
"By code, you have two minutes to get water from the basement up to the sprinkler heads in the attic," MacDuff said. "Today, it got there in 33 seconds."
Two weeks ago, the sprinkler system at the school was out of order, leading the fire marshal to deem the more-than-100-year-old building unfit for occupancy.
In September, Fischer announced that High Road, a program for students in grades six through 12 who have emotional disabilities, will move from Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School to Harbor School as soon as renovations to the facility are completed.
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How contentious are thy branches?
A Christmas tree in Montville that's annually decorated by a father and daughter has become a lightning rod due to its handcuff ornaments.
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Analysis: Trump likely paid less in federal income tax than average middle class American


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Playing this video requires the latest flash player from Adobe.
Download link (right click and 'save-as') for playing in VLC or other compatible player.
I will discuss an alternative approach to simulating Hamiltonian flows with a quantum computer. A Hamiltonian system is a continuous time dynamical system represented as a flow of points in phase space. An
alternative dynamical system, first introduced by Poincare, is defined
in terms of an area preserving map. The dynamics is not continuous but discrete and successive dynamical states are labeled by integers rather than a continuous time variable. Discrete unitary maps are
naturally adapted to the quantum computing paradigm. Grover's
algorithm, for example, is an iterated unitary map. In this talk I
will discuss examples of nonlinear dynamical maps which are well adapted to simple ion trap quantum computers, including a transverse field Ising map, a non linear rotor map and a Jahn-Teller map. I will show how a good understanding of the quantum phase transitions
and entanglement exhibited in these models can be gained by first
describing the classical bifurcation structure of fixed points.


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Great Triumphs Angel Ornament.
Perfect gift for your whimsical, garden loving friend.
Substitution Policy
Occasionally, substitutions of flowers may happen due to weather, seasonality and market conditions which may affect availability. If this is the case with the gift you've selected, Ross Plants & Flowers will ensure that the style, theme and color scheme of your arrangement is preserved and will only substitute items of equal or higher value.
To ensure the recipient gets the flowers you prefer please note in the comments section of check out what you like most about your selection. (Example: my grandmother loves roses)


text: LSP_Kevin 29,864 Posted December 14, 2013 Share Posted December 14, 2013 Howdy folks, There's a tagging feature in the forum software that really isn't being used at the moment, so I'd really like to encourage members to use it where applicable. But first, let me explain what it is. When you start a new thread, underneath the "Topic Title" field there is another, labelled "Topic Tags". This is a place to enter keywords regarding the topic. For example, I've recently started tagging all the review and review notification threads with the word 'review'. Not only does this greatly aid efficient searching, but the forum software also uses this information to populate a sort of 'related content' section at the bottom of the thread. So, if you load up a tagged review thread, all the other tagged review threads will be listed at the bottom of the current thread. This obviously makes it very easy to find other review threads, and equally applies to any conceptually-related content in the forums. So, by way of a few handy guidelines, here's how I see it being used. Firstly, don't put really obvious or generic stuff in there, like '1/32' or 'model build'; stick to specifics that will help connect multiple, similar threads. For example, all our current B-17 build threads would group beautifully if they were tagged "HK Models B-17". So, it's useful to tag any model build with kit information ('Revell Bf 109G', 'Trumpeter MiG-15', etc). You might have to use the forum search function to find the first one, but after that, they're all at your fingertips! The second guideline is to only bother tagging model threads (RFI or WIP) and useful stuff in, say LSP Discussion or Tips and Techniques (etc). In other words, don't bother tagging joke posts in General Discussion, or anything else members are unlikely to actually search for. Thirdly, be succinct! Don't overload it. You're only allowed a maximum of 10 anyway, but you would rarely need that many. You just separate them with commas, so multi-word tags are fine. That's it! Give it a go with your existing threads, and ask any questions here if you have them. Oh, I've tagged this on with 'forum info'. Kev Subodai 1 Link to post Share on other sites


text: I've been working on ProjectEuler's Problem 75 for about 4 days already, and it completely burns my brain. It's easy to generate Pythagorean triples with Euler's or Dickson's methods, but they're all of quadratic complexity, not something you want to use when aiming for ~million triples. I just can't figure any better method. So, can anybody suggest me an algorithm of at most linearithmic complexity to generate all the Pythagorean triples?


text: As a follow-up to last year's sold out set, Cryptozoic Entertainment will be releasing a series of trading cards based on the second season of AMC's hit series, The Walking Dead. Driven out of their camp, the group of survivors are on the road and looking for supplies and a safe haven. But, when a roaming hoard of walkers separates one of the kids from the group, Rick and the others must leave the safety of the group and venture into the forest to find her. Re-live each nail-biting moment of the incredible second season with your collection of trading cards!


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The Wicker Woman
Note: This review is from 2006
This fantastically low-budget retelling of the cult 1973 movie is riot of stupid gags, brilliant invention and hilariously off-kilter acting.
The sets and props are wonderfully tacky, the script knowing yet silly, and the whole thing completely, and gloriously, over the top.
For those who haven't seen the original, an explanation of its plot is conveniently shoehorned into this spoof. Essentially it's: stranger visiting remote Scottish island goes missing; police officer sent to investigate encounters spooky goings-on; villagers burn outsider in giant wicker figure as pagan sacrifice.
It takes just three people - and a lot of talent - to portray the cast of dozens; from the perky, bubblegummy policewoman Chastity to the overenthusiastic gingham-clad bumpkin Willow, via romantically smitten cops, giggling wind farm technicians, and even an entire mob of angry locals.
Deft comic touches pervade the script like intolerance pervades the countryside, with running gags about the freakish man hands of gorgeous star Lucy Montgomery, some silly puppet theatre and plenty of lines mocking the ridiculousness of this entire, overambitious venture.
Most often, though, the laughs come from the inventive solutions to staging such an epic tale for a few quid. Describing any would spoil their impact, but rest assured the team are duly resourceful - often to the extent that the mere introduction of a clever new prop is enough to elicit an appreciative round of applause.
The relentless show's a little overstretched at an hour, and the post-ritual ending could do with being sharper, but otherwise this is great fun all the way, packed with inspired ideas and executed with impressive gusto and skill.
Review date: 1 Jan 2006
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett


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Airport Delays +
- Publisher: Dmitry Alaev
- Genre: Travel
- Released: 6 Jun, 2012
- Size: 9.7 MB
- Price: FREE!
- App Store Info
DescriptionThe "Airport Delays" iOS application allows you to see the delays at world airports, we use professional aviation information from airports weather stations for calculate delays. You can save a list of airports that you frequently go to and check for reported delays at a glance.
- User friendly interface make app to easy for use
- You can search airport use the city name, or ITA/ICAO airport code
- Application used you location can show all near airports at map
- Show your local time and current time at airport
- Full description about airport ( city, country, airport code, current time ) - Support all iOS devices at one app
- Use your Twitter to share Airport Delays info from application
- Use settings menu for set your preferences
- Internet connection is required to access the information
What's New in Version 1.0.6- iOS 7 compatible added
- Interface design changes
- New airport's to database added
- Minor bugs fixed


text:
Samantha Chang Seamed Boyshort.
Style:Low rise.
Sheer/Mesh front and back.
VPL Risk:low.
Gusset type:Cotton.
Amount of waistband stretch:Medium.
About Samantha Chang: Based in New York since 1996, Samantha attended Rhode Island School of Design and has a Bachelor of Fine Art Degree in Apparel Design. She uses comfortable fabrics and playful prints that are great for lounging, sleeping, and entertaining!


text:
Telephone: 01984 632 303
Family run since 1975
Very attractive mauve flowers with white at the base of the petals.
The scent of Shrub Roses is certainly hard to beat. The fantastic aroma of the roses fills your garden with beautiful fragrance, giving that 'English Cottage Garden' feel.
If you would like any further information, please telephone our office on 01984 6323023 or email firstname.lastname@example.com
Price : £14.95
Stock Quantity : 5


text:
1/2 oz 2014 O Canada Series - Grizzly Bear Silver Coin
The grizzly has long been honoured, not only as a symbol of the elusive and powerful wildlife of Canada but also by Canada's First Nations people for thousands of years. They are reverenced not just for their strength, but often with the same respect as a grandfather or cherished ancestor.
This is the second coin in the 1/2 oz silver O' Canada series. The obverse features the Susanna Blunt effigy of Queen Elizabeth II and the words "Elizabeth II D.G. Regina"
The reverse features a design by Canadian artist Glen Loates that captures not just the powerful nature of the grizzly, but also its solitary persona. The coin features a full body profile of a large grizzly from its left side. The powerful musculature and thick neck of the bear showcase its massive size and the silver-tipped fur is beautifully captured with special engraving techniques to bring out the detail. The bear is clambering over a log on top of a lonely, rocky outcropping. It's pointed, short snout gives way to the distinctively massive head and small eyes and ears. The bears head is lowered as it scans the area, likely for food. The landscape also bears the artist's initials. Engraved along the outside are the words "Canada 10 Dollars 2014" and a miniature, stylized profile of a grizzly head.
This limited release coin has a worldwide mintage of only 40,000 and is sure to sell out quickly. It makes a perfect addition to any wildlife or silver collection.
This 9999 pure matte proof finish silver coin comes encapsulated in a maroon clamshell case with a serialized certificate.
|Royal Canadian Mint
|Brilliant uncirculated
|The words "Elizabeth II D.G. Regina" and the Susanna Blunt Effigy of Queen Elizabeth II
|A grizzly bear clambering over a log on a rocky outcrop with its mouth slightly open and the words "Canada 2014 10 Dollars", the artist's initials and a miniaturized grizzly head in profile
|34.0 x 34.0 x 2.1
|Susanna Blunt (obverse), Glen Loates (reverse)


text:
RSS Feeds
- What are News Feeds?
- How do I start using feeds?
- How do I get a news reader?
- Using our News feeds on your site.
What are News Feeds?
News feeds allow you to see when websites have added new content. You can get the latest videos in one place, as soon as its published, without having to visit the websites you have taken the feed from.
Feeds are also known as RSS (Really Simple Syndication). In essence, the feeds themselves are just web pages, designed to be read by computers rather than people.
How do I start using feeds?
In general, the first thing you need is something called a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks the feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications.
Browser-based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, in the same way that you either download your e-mail using Outlook, or keep it on a web-based service like Hotmail.
Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want it to receive. For example, if you would like the latest Horror movies, simply visit the ENTERTAINMENT>Horror/Suspense (https://www.vod.com/category/101/entertainment-horror-suspense/) category and you will notice an orange button on the top middle bar next to the category name.
If you would like the latest from Brain Damage Films (https://www.vod.com/studio/903/Brain-Damage-Films/), visit the studio page of our site and click on the orange button on the top middle bar next to the studio name.
If you click on the button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader. Most sites that offer feeds use a similar orange button, but some may just have a normal web link.
Some browsers, including IE7, Firefox, Opera and Safari, automatically check for feeds for you when you visit a website, and display an icon when they find one. This can make subscribing to feeds much easier. For more details on these, please check their websites.
How do I get a news reader?
There is a range of different news readers available and new versions are appearing all the time.
Different news readers work on different operating systems, so you will need to choose one that will work with your computer.
Using our News feeds on your site.
If you run your own website, you can display the latest headlines from other websites on your own site using RSS.
We encourage the use of our video feeds as part of a website, however, we do require that the proper format and attribution is used when our video content appears. The attribution text should read "SiteName Videos" or "SiteName Category" as appropriate.


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Dark Souls: an experiment in logic
Pages 1 2 3 4 5 6 NEXT
So I am sure everyone remembers the controversy surrounding the whole Dark Souls easy mode thing. It actually peaked my interested because I was told by many players that the easy mode would ruin the game from a design standpoint (not just for the easy players, but for the traditional mode players as well). So I did what I usually do when I have conflicting information with interesting reports. I investigated the situation.
A short backstory:
When Dark Souls first released on the 360 I picked it up because I was interested after hearing about Demon's Souls. I got through the Asylum with minimal difficulties and moved into Firelink. After repeated attempts with multiple characters to take down the Skellys in the graveyard, I gave up on the game (I never saw the stairs leading to the burg) as I wasn't into games that intentionally punished me. I gave it to a friend who was interested and let him have at it. He found the burg and got a ways in before the disc was destroyed by a moving Xbox. By this point, I had no real interest in the game any longer. Forgetting about it until the mention of an easy mode.
For obvious reasons an easy mode might appeal to me, someone who initially found the game too hard (though I found out later that it wasn't really that hard, I was just going the wrong direction). After the controversy died down the PC version released. So I picked it up to investigate the claims of an easy mode ruining the game.
Having Played:
After a long week of play I am now on my NG++ and I can safely say I love the game (though I hate the hackers). I can also safely say something else. I still don't see how a new mode labeled easy would have affected anyone other than the developers and the players who found the game inaccessible (provided they didn't let the easy players join the traditional players). I hold to it that an easy mode would have given more money to the developer to continue making games of the caliber.
The debate over this is long dead, and I realise it. So lets not rehash the same issues we discussed before. Instead I ask you, how do you interface with the online aspect of the game. Are you someone who avoids it at all costs only going human to kindle and summon, or do you run about human at all times to allow for invasions? Do you, perhaps, invade everyone yourself? Maybe you are one of the Cat Fellowship PvPers. Whatever the case maybe, what do you do online and why do you enjoy it?
I like the danger of being able to be invaded at any time . It ups the stakes , which are already pretty fucking high . It was fun back then ( i bought it day 1 ), because people didn't cheat ( mostly they didn't know how ). I also never used a guide so i had no idea ( at least on my first play through ) how big the areas were , where i would be safe , where to go . So so much things to worry about . It was exciting and fresh and new and awsome .
Also , if you want an easy mode DS is not the game for you. It says so on the box , anyone who bought the game should have known what they were getting into . And i seriously doubt the game would have sold so well if it wasn't hard . We got enough easy games to last a lifetime . People that want that can go play the wide array of games for them . This is a game for the challenge seekers. Niche , if you will.
There was a thread a week or so ago in which people were complaining about the homogeneity of current gen games. This spilled over into how games are really easy these days in order to cater to (buzzword incoming) "casuals". Of course a segment of people argued that if you pay for something, it should be easy to access the content. Those people never played NES I'm sure.
Beating a game used to mean something. I remember beating Ninja Gaiden II (NES). Took me 2 weeks to do it (which was long for me at the time). After even more practise, I could beat it without dying. I could beat Super Contra with no deaths as well. I doubt I could do that now though. My skills were dulled over time through hand-holding, frequent checkpoints, save points, save anywhere, elimination of the "lives" system, elimination of the "limited continues" system, lack of consequence/ penalties, etc...
Not every game has to retain those things. But it's nice that a game like Dark Souls exists to give us all a much needed kick in the ass.
Easy mode? Do not want!
EDIT: Online - in Demon's Souls I used to help newbies in co-op. Don't touch Dark Souls online too much.
I'm a Sun Bro, i enjoy helping other DS players fight through their quest, they get to proceed, i get humanity and a sun medal, its all win-win really.
I like the thrill of being online, the random help, the random threats, the random hints. its enjoyable to say the least.
Too late lol. It's not very fair to write an opinion piece and then ask us not to respond. Not fair I say! *grumble* I'll post a video I agree with on this subject.
It's quite long, so I will list some key points:
1. The mechanics and content of Dark Souls are designed around it's difficulty. You can't change the difficulty and expect unskilled players to have a similar experience. It's not a matter of just halving the enemies' HP and calling it a day. It's not that simple. For example, Darkwraiths are trivial to me. You can multiply their health by ten times or a hundred, and they would still be trivial. It's not the scale of the challenge so much as learning to take advantage of the game's mechanics.
Update: what this means is, an easy mode would have a huge impact on the design of the normal mode almost as a necessity. Either they literally make two different games, which is obviously unrealistic, or they take both easy mode and normal mode into account in the design of every enemy, every area, every encounter, every puzzle, every boss, the leveling system, the weapon system, parry/riposte/backstab mechanics, poise/stability/defense mechanics, invicibility frames... you get the idea. So don't act so sure this won't effect my gameplay experience. It will most likely effect it in every aspect.
2. Learning to make the seemingly unbeatable content of Dark Souls trivial is the content of the game. Take that away and you're left with a short, shitty action-RPG. That's not because Dark Souls is shitty or because it just relies on difficulty as a crutch. It's because making Dark Souls easy makes it's content and mechanics irrelevant. Figuring out what you're supposed to do is the content of the game. Taking that away is like taking the strategy out of an RTS game. It would be pointless to play a game like that, you'd just get bored of it and find something else to play.
If you ever tried Dark Souls and gave up, it may surprise or even enrage you to see people say that it's actually easy. It may seem like they're just bragging. But they figured out how to make it easy. That is to say, they experienced the game's content.
3. It is massively unrealistic to expect the "hardcore" Dark Souls experience to retain it's quality and emphasis if FROM Software decides to seek a broader audience by implementing an easy mode. It defies logic and video game history. Especially in light of the points above. It just wouldn't make sense. I think it's realistic to expect the normal Dark Souls to be damaged and not unlikely it will just fade into the same cookie-cutter 'bleh' that characterizes so much stuff out there. And consider how atmospheric and inaccessible the story telling is, or how the game doesn't always tell you where to go next. Do you expect those elements to be preserved if From Soft decides to broaden their appeal? Not a chance.
It defies logic and especially video game history. We know what happens when a series tries to broaden it's appeal and seek out a new audience. So don't play dumb with me, please. It's tedious.
4. If Dark Souls had an easy mode, the tension would evaporate for all players, even the ones who play the normal difficulty. If there is an easy version of the Capra Demon, then I know I can beat the Capra Demon. I know I can win. Not only that, but I know the game is designed to ensure I can win. The tension is lost, or at least it is not the same. I wouldn't have felt the same way the first time I got obliterated by the Capra Demon in five seconds. And I wouldn't have felt the same way the first time I beat his ass and took his souls.
5. This one is from me, not the video: Having ONE difficult AAA title is not a freaking crime. There are so many accessible games you can play. Please leave me with the ONE title like this. Try to understand how this looks from my perspective. I have ONE game like this and it's apparently too much to ask.
I suspect some players think I don't want Dark Souls to have an easy mode for the following reasons:
1. Dark Souls is prohibitively difficult.
But it just ain't so. Many find Dark Souls prohibitively frustrating but it isn't that demanding in terms of "skill" required. If it was, I probably couldn't beat it. It just seems like it is, especially at first. I love Dark Souls and I want everyone to experience it. But people can't share in the Dark Souls experience if that experience is lost. Just listen to Hidetaka Miyazaki on people finding his games too hard:
This fact is really sad to me and I am thinking about how to make everyone complete the game while maintaining the current difficulty and carefully send all gamers the messages behind it.
I mostly played hollow on my first playthrough (which means I received neither attacks nor cooperative aid from other players). This wasn't because I was chicken, but because of an early coop experience I had. I summoned a player in the Undead Burg, and he ended up more-or-less beating the Taurus Demon for me. I decided that was not the experience I was looking for, and determined to attack the PvE content uninterrupted for the remainder of the play-through. I did take time off to experiment with PvP and help people with bosses, but typically not when I was occupied with clearing the game.
After that first play-through, I always play in human form (subject to the benefits and dangers of online play). Now that I've beaten the game, it's not such a point of pride to do it by myself, and the threat of invasion keeps me on my toes.
I don't do Forest PvP much. There is nothing there but gank squads. Sometimes I think about going there to lame the lamers but, eh, what's the point. I much prefer Anor Londo. I understand Kiln of the First Flame is popular but I haven't spent time PvPing there. Now that Xbox has the DLC I will probably make a Soul Level 100 Arena build before too long. I've experimented with the Darkmoon Blades, and more recently the Darkwraiths. I LOVE the idea of the Darkmoon Blades, but I kind of hate Dark Londo lol. And I want to.
Playing the Dragon Covenant was really cool. I didn't mind fighting in Anor Londo while I waited to be summoned. It was pretty cool to 'hang' there, actually. Lay down one type of sign or another, kill stuff, wait to be summoned, and chill. Co-oping Ornstein and Smough is just fun. And I used the Dragon Scales I won to upgrade my Moonlight Greatsword. Int build FTW lol.
Besides, full Catarina armor + dragon head stone = lulz.
On the first point, I'll just leave it at; more money = more games made this way = more than just one of these games for your playing pleasure. Also, many people after playing on easy tend to move up in difficulty, but this isn't why we are here.
I love the PvP in this game, I just loathe the hackers. Them aside, I've had tons of fun with the game now that it is accessible to me, it just took some doing to get there. I don't mind that, but others do.
There may be more games, but they wouldn't be like Dark Souls for all the reasons I described.
It's really not about what other people do.
Seriously friend, you can't do that lol. You can't write four paragraphs about a Dark Souls easy mode in the original post of a thread you titled "Dark Souls- an experiment in logic" and then tell us not to talk about it. And you can't rebut my posts on the subject and then tell me not to rebut yours. You can make your point or you can ask me to stop talking, you can't do both.
Okay, but I don't think it's fair to sacrifice my experience for their sake. They can play anything, I only have Dark Souls. I want those others to experience Dark Souls. And I admit being frustrating for new players isn't a good thing. But that's the nature of the beast. If they can somehow make this type of game both mechanics/knowledge-based and at the same time accessible to new players, then great. But that's a far cry from simply adding an easy mode to Dark Souls, and it sounds almost like trying to have your cake and eat it too.
How is it sacrificing your experience? If it is totally separate from the traditional players it doesn't effect you at all. This is the very argument that intrigued me to play the game in the first place. I don't see how it effects your playstyle at all.
I feel Similairly to the Bioware, story-mode fiasco I will say the same thing now as I did then. Just let people play the game the way they want, don't want a easy mode? Fine then don't use the easy mode. You feel its prescence would kill all tension for other people? Fine let them play a worse game, you have suffered no loss for it. Seriously will people please stop trying to control how other people expierence a game because you don't like how they want to play?
I wouldn't play an easy mode, unless I could switch it on just for 4 Kings and Ceaseless Discharge lol. I hate both those fights. The former because it forces me into a very specific strategy that runs counter to how I enjoy playing, and I still need luck to beat them on higher difficulties. The latter because its so random whether of not you are allowed to get all the way to the crevasse without getting one shot through the damn walls from a mile away.
Seriously that fight boils down to, grabbing the gear and running to the crevasse, usually getting insta gibbed. Then running back to the cravasse, randomly getting instagibbed by the screen wide wall of fire that clips through the geometry. Eventually you randomly are allowed to make it to the hidey-hole where you cheese the boss to death easily.
If there is another way to do it, one that doesn't rely on pure luck or perfect psychic dodges out in the open I probably wouldn't be able to do it that way. Rumor is that the new patch makes my way, the recommended way, not work anymore. Unless it also fixes his undodgeable nova attack going through the walls and floor it means I will probably never beat him again lol.
Did the DLC with an end game character.
Aside from those 2 instances the game isn't that difficult. If anything the patches made it even easier, while they whittled down the number of viable build choices repeatedly.
I love both Souls games. That being said I DESPISE the pvp. I don't co-op, but I wouldn't go so far as to say I hate it too.
My reasons being that I play them for the games themselves, the challenge, and for what amounts to a story.
I don't play them to inflate my ego, or yours be ganking or getting roflstomped.
I would rather have a game where the gear and spells are BALANCED AGAINST THE MOBS AND BOSSES and not against themselves so PVP has variation or whatever. I'm sick of this or that getting nerfed for PVP reasons that have often little implication to its PVE use other than to make more and more gear/build choices not as viable.
I don't use the DWGR, the masks, sorceries, elemental upgrade paths, or Greatswords, but I don't need them nerfed (in some cases repeatedly) just to satisfy the haters that clamour for it.
Also, can you imagine how much more actual CONTENT they might have been able to put into Dark in particular if they didn't feel obligated to base so much of the game around the covenant system?
I'd keep the goodies you get from them, just make them drops or in chests. Also the system in the first game with losing your body made sense since it directly affected your HP and the noise your aggro range etc. It was a penalty in some ways, but you did more damage and were quieter in soul form. The PVP there was broken but acceptable.
In Dark? Their is no reason to be in human/hollow form apart from minor curse resistance and item find. The main reason is so you don't get invaded every 13 seconds when you go anywhere near a bonfire. Unless you happen to think that having an in depth customization system is POINTLESS when your face looks like jerky 99% of the game.
I'd rather just have a decent game to play, minus the forced trolling of the PVP. I just disable my net when I play either game. I don't need a MOBA slathered over my ARPG.
Really? I played both Souls games because I liked the level design, the art style, the world, and the atmosphere, not because I wanted a challenge. Guess I must have been playing the games wrong, then...
Dark Souls beat me. I wasn't able to even play it because it refused my attempts to use keyboard and mouse and wouldn't allow me to use my PS2 controller. None of the third party programs would work either because I use a PS2 to USB converter instead of PS2 to PS3.
I've recently started playing Dark Souls again. I've gotten a lot farther this time than before my game got stolen. I like co-op mode and I'm a Sunbro... at least I was until after Gaping Dragon. Now I'm level 70 in Anor Londo and I can't be a Sunbro here... not many get to see my glorious golden phantom.
Also, Ornstein has been wrecking my face. I can take out Smough easy enough, but Ornstein is messing my face right up. I'm currently working on that. Maybe some Pyromancy... maybe some Quelaag's Furysword.
But back to the point of the online play, I love me some jolly cooperation. I just wish they'd lift the level restrictions a bit. Maybe they would've allowed more high-levels helping lower levels in co-op in Easy Mode. Just saying, I loves to help out and I wish I could go back to an area and help out no matter what. It'd be like a vacation. I've died 5 times fighting Super Ornstein, I'd like to col off a bit fighting the Hydra again. That kind of thing.
Oh... and I HATE pvp. Glitchy, easily hacked nonsense. I want to kill Dark Soul Gwyn... but I also don't want to be invaded by asshats on a regular basis while I'm patiently trying to learn enemy timing.
Funny, my first baby steps experience with Dark Souls was quite similar to yours, it seems. I found the graveyard and started whacking at the skellies, which refused to die and killed me with the tiniest effort on their behalf.
I still managed to level up a couple of times, but I thought to myself: Wow, that's really harsh.
Then, more by accident and wandering around aimlessly out of frustration, I found out that there was a stairs leading down and that there was more accessible game real estate in the opposite direction... where a dragon toasted me after a huge black knight chopped me to bits two or three times before I sniped him to doom.
Yes, Dark Souls is hard and harsh, but amazingly hardly ever unfair or cheap. Scaling the difficulty is something that's hardly ever done properly, and I just think it wouldn't do a brilliant title like Dark Souls, Demons Souls or whatever * Souls that might follow any good or proper justice. These games, just by being so well done and fair, are all about identifying the enemy and studying every single unique opponent. What moves do they have? What can I put to use in my arsenal? Ranged combat with a crappy bow that I should upgrade? Some fiery pyromancy? When they get close and things get personal, you just have to have a firm grasp of what your player character is capable of... in my case, I managed to postpone getting to terms with parry/riposte and backstabbing for days, and I didn't feel troubled enough to put up with it until Anor Londo. Once I mastered that - with very little dying - I truly felt more powerful and more in control.
Never forget the example my brother set when he went back to the Asylum - and killed the Asylum Demon with a non-upgraded crap sword. It took him hours and after he succeeded he collapsed in tears. I could have told him that that was a really crap idea, but, like me and others, he took his own time to understand the mechanics and intricacies of upgrading weapons and proper levelling your character.
Changing this game experience to 'press button to kill enemy' in a dumbed down way or maybe even in a quicktime button press approach would ruin all these little and big moments of achievement, of growing as a player. The controls, actual fighting and boss fights in the D* Souls games are all logical puzzles of sorts in their own way. Giving the player more health would spoil the system of putting upgrade/level points into health. Giving the player more punch would take away huge chunks of the dread and the other assorted feelings that make up a lot of the mindset you find yourself in once you dare to start the game and keep at it until you have at least a minor idea about what's going on and what to do. Any more thorough tutorial than the Asylum would be kiddie-style overkill. Any pop-up messages inviting me to 'lower the difficulty setting' would break immersion. Any way around taking the brunt of the games nastiness would be equivalent to cheating, both breaking gameplay and cheating yourself out of the experience of getting better and even good at turning your player character into a force to be feared by all the undead and undying baddies.
The PVP bit is borked, but not by design. People that resort to cheating and abusing exploits must not be considered the status quo and standard, and I hope there will be less of these issues in the next * Souls title. I am well over 200 hours into playing Dark Souls, and I do enjoy some PVP action every now and then. I prefer to help people as a Sun Bro Sis, and I do enjoy going after folks that switched off the lights in Anor Londo. I also have one char that's all about invading and taunting high level human opponents that pretty much feels like Call of Souls, messing with people's strategies and heads, no matter how much support they summon up.
When people put up some effort to handle Dark Souls with the respect it deserves, and when they agree that PVP should involve some bits of honour and wanting to be the better man/woman/undead, I think PVP in Dark Souls can be anywhere from OK to awesome. Hide yourself as the flowerpot assassin, go straight at your opponent and do a gentle bow before you attempt to hack them to bits and toast their remains to instant beef jerky. You can already have it your way in a number of ways, making it 'more accessible' and dumbing it down is not a way I think could bring much good to the franchise. In fact, dumbing it down, even if it's just optional, would probably kill off the franchise instantly.
It's a game for people that want a challenge , doesn't mean others can't play it and apreciate other aspects of it . I do have to wonder though , would the game have sold as well if it was easier or had an easy mode . I mean " you will die, a lot " is kind of the main gimmick which ,in my opinion , is what made people curious enough to try it . Demon's souls did sell well enough to at least warrant a sequel,wouldn't removing that make it more bland? What do you think( this isn't sarcasm , i am truly interested in your thoughts on this )?
My issue with Dark Souls wasn't so much in the difficulty, as it was in the half-second delay between player movement and player-input. And the fact that every enemy can break your guard and hack you to pieces before you can say "What the..."
Cheap, not hard, is the word most people are looking for.
I actually didn't know that players could invade someone else's game until it happened to me. Some prick walked right in and hacked me to pieces. Thank you Hewlett Packard for putting a "Disable Router" button right on my keyboard. Showed that little bastard when he got insta-booted from my game because I was no longer connected to the internet.
I see all of the same crap come from people who don't want easy mode. The same bullshit about "Developer intentions" and "You'll get a crappy experience!"
Two things.
1. Easy Mode isn't being made for you. Suck it up.
Yeah, I'd like a hard game too. But difficulty is not throwing yourself at a wall and hoping this time you'll break it down. Within reason, maybe. But this isn't difficulty. This is on par with NES games, which did this kind of thing to pad out their runtime (Ninja Gaiden can be beaten in 20 minutes if you know what you're doing). Challenge should be given to the player in increments.
This is not even close to a good game. This is perhaps the first game I can easily say is completley horrible.
Well, I didn't think that the game was for those that wanted a challenge; just like it's spiritual predecessor, King's Field, I thought the game was for those that wanted an atmospheric, dark fantasy/horror game with an air of oppression and desperation about it. The difficulty just added to that atmosphere, and people a lot of people who love challenging games (there are a fair number, I don't deny) latched onto that.
As for what I think about the whole "Dark Souls easy difficulty mode" thing? I think it matters as much as the easy mode in XCOM:EU: none at all, if done right.
I'd much prefer a hard mode. Challenged runs are fun and all but self-imposed rules will never compare to what can be achieved with actual development. A easy mode is pointless, perhaps a slightly smoother difficulty curve and more conscientious level design for the first 5 areas might be a bit better. I think everyone spent the first hour dieing constantly to the skeletons and that's a problem from a design standpoint not from a conceptual one. Aiming for the high difficulty niche is not an excuse for bad design but in fact quite the opposite.
Super Ornstein is easy, just his hug nuts and roll away when he's doing the buttstomp and it doesn't hurt to have a high stability shield like the balder or eagle shields. Most of his attacks should sail right over you as long you stay close. Also what weapon are you using?
If your guard is getting broken that easily, you either need to increase your stamina or get a higher stability shield or both. Aside from a few instances(Bed of Chaos, I'm looking at you), the game is pretty fair. And really dude, shutting off your router because you didn't face an invader? You didn't show that guy anything except that you're afraid of pvp. If you don't want to get invaded, play offline. As for easy mode, see Rooster's post above. If you're throwing yourself at a wall, you're doing it wrong. Take a step back and observe your enemies and surroundings, just rushing them will get you killed most of the time. Try pulling one enemy at a time if they're in a group. Learn their patterns, perhaps their susceptible to parry's or backstabs. And don't forget to upgrade your gear if you feel you aren't doing enough damage.
No no... the buttslam is Smough's move. Big fat guy with the hammer that tries to sit on you: That's Smough. Smough is super easy and I eat his health for breakfast, nom nom. It's his spear-wielding, super-fast, cheap-combo-using partner that is wrecking my face.
I'm fast, and I can dodge most of his nonsense when he's normal size, but when he's twice as big and his reach is massive, I can't dodge fast enough to not die.
I'm using the Astora's Straight Sword +5. I also like to use lightning spears lesser and greater. I have a faith/dex build so I can't exactly use a high-poise shield. Queelag's Furysword +4 let me down as it's got this mighty pause to swing a friggin' dex-based sword. What a waste of souls. I'm currently working on ascending a +15 pyromancy glove.
Mmm... souls seem so plentiful...
True enough, I could probably kick Super Smough's slow ass, but I'd have to be able to kill Ornstein first which is currently taking too long, and the two of them get me eventually if I don't kill someone fast enough. Which is why I'm looking into Pyromancy now, I hear Ornstein is weak to fire. Which is good because he soaks my lightning damage.
Ornstein gets the buttslam move if you kill Smough first. Sticking close to him is the best idea though, as long as you have a decent speed roll you can escape the buttslam when he uses it.
This would totally hurt my play experience because....
Well, okay, it doesn't ruin it directly, but how can I enjoy my accomplishments knowing someone might have done something on easy mode that caused me to snap two controllers in frustration???
Puritanism: the fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time.
Orstein gets the buttslam when he absorbs Smough. Kinda surprised you didn't see it yet. And like I said as long as you stay close and stick to right side of him, most of his spear attacks should go right past you. I haven't really heard good things about Astoria's Straight Sword so you might need something better, but I don't really use faith weapons, so I don't know. Perhaps the Balder Side Sword might be worth your time. And keep in mind that the Furysword is a chaos weapon. It scales with humanity, so you need to pump that counter up a bit to really get some mileage out of it. It's actually one of the best boss weapons in the game.
With the shields, you only need 12 strength to carry the balder shield and 16 to carry the eagle shield, so I think you should probably have enough strength to at least carry the balder shield. You can get the balder shield as a drop from the knights in the parish or you can buy off of the crestfallen merchant in Sen's Fortress. It has great stability for a medium shield and it doesn't weigh that much. I usually try to get that shield the first chance I get. The eagle shield can be found in top half of blight tower on a collapsed pillar I believe, can't remember where exactly though. It's a greatshield, so it has very good stability plus a high lightning resistance. The downside is that the latest patch reduced it's physical resistance from 100 to 95 to balance it out.
Finally, you definitely want to put your focus on one of them since the other guy is just gonna heal anyway. And I would definitely recommend upgrading your glove since Ornstein is indeed weak to fire, plus it's a nice backup to have.
I've been finding that most divine weapons suck. No matter what the stat scaling of the weapon was, Strength is made into garbage, dex is just above that and faith is average. However, the Astora's Straight sword is good because it's got average stat scaling for dex, faith and strength. I didn't have all the humanity there, but with my build, the Astora's Straight Sword was doing just a bit less than the Furysword. It's faster too except for the running slash.
I'm currently running through blighttown just mowing everything down with it.. oh wait, yeah, I skipped most of blighttown. I found that Eagle Shield... won't do me any help at current. I've ascended the pyroflame... but I ran out of souls. I'm also looking for the Iaito. Maybe bump that up to +15...
Oh, and no, I've never run into his buttslam. What gets me... and has gotten me all four times... is when he plants his spear and charges forward with that huge aoe lightning move.
Why can't you use the eagle shield? If it's just the strength requirement, the balder shield can work nicely as well. And the Iaito can be found at the beginning of blighttown. Basically, run down the path until you reach the edge of the platforms. You should see a shiny on the left side on a platform in the distance, you gotta jump to that. It's pretty decent. As for the lightning move, that sounds like the grab move where he shocks you with lightning in the air. Just stay conservative with your attacks so you can see it coming early enough to start rolling to side or backwards.
It does if my playstyle revolves around the online component. If there was, say, a 50-50 split, that means there would only be 50% of the people there are now online on either difficulty setting.
You might say that people can still play offline and all that, but that also takes the hint and co-op system away from them and makes the game harder as a result. So there is incentive to play online, which would incidentally be crushed by an easy mode, if you found you needed neither hints nor co-op to casually beat the game.
Dark Souls is a collective experience. A separate difficulty mode would disrupt it at best, and ruin it at worst. Besides, this is a game that gets almost incredibly easy once you know its tricks and master its flow. My second playthrough was almost half the duration of the first, and I had been just as completionist in it as the first time around. This contrast, the idea that what was once crushingly hard is now much easier, is a key feature in the game's replayability.
For Ornstein's spear impalement, dodge when his left foot hits the ground. Your weapons should be fine, consider a normal +15 weapon (Iaito is a very good choice) that you can use weapon buffs on. Divine weapons are good provided you get them to +10 which you can't do atm.
A +15 pyromancy flame should wreck Ornstein's ass with Great Combustion and Power Within. Summon Solaire, burn Smough down fast, then cast Power Within and destroy Orns. You don't even need a weapon for it. At least, that's how I did it on my pyromancer run (it was Super Smough, but the same applies for Orns which I killed on 4 playthroughs until now).
Well the purists will always argue this down to the end of days, in fear of what their pure and pristine club might turn into when immigrants come.
Now if you limit an entire game to the dumbest player base that is a huge determent, but adding options to a well made game has never been a step back, hell I see no reason why they wouldn't also have an iron man mode for people who want to go further up the scale.
Some people argue that with MP in the mix it would all be ruined, but this just isn't the case because no changes would haveto be made, hints are the same for everyone, PvP would put you on even footing and co-op pulls you into the main guys game anyway.
I finally got hit with his butt pound... unfortunately, my character was mightily swinging Furysword into the air that Ornstein used to occupy. Apparently, I haven't gone through the full Ruins of New Londo yet... so Iaido is sitting at +10 right now. Not a bad sword, I could get used to it.
Which brings me to my next point: The Ruins of New Londo is unfair. I know I need either a transient or a real curse to damage those ghosts, but the ghosts can travel through walls and attack while in them. The fog ring and slumbering dragoncrest don't do squat. So I walk into a room and am suddenly surrounded by ten ghosts. This has happened in two different rooms. There is no warning about where the ghosts swarm you as they all fly in from where you can't look. You just have to trial and error the place to death. Unfortunately, I don't have an unlimited supply of transient curses to learn where ambushes happen. This is NOT good design. This is NOT a "challenge". This is reminiscent of arcade machines milking us for money. I'm going to have to go back to the underground and purposefully die of a curse just so I can get through.
THAT is the "slamming against a wall trying to break through with your squishy shoulder" point that some people are trying to make.
As for PvP getting cheapened by easy mode. Um... no... I think exploiting has ruined PvP. I cleared the Painted World... quite easily, I might add, and found that I could grind 9000 souls a minute after opening the front gate to the courtyard:
10: Equip Ring of Fog and Covetous Silver Serpent Ring
Easy levels, equipment, popularity and wenches. So, if a little build, I didn't even plan for, ruins level progression, and therefore PvP... what is so bad about an easy mode?
The thing is that Dark Souls is meant to be difficult. It's a harrowing journey through a dying world where death is part of the learning experience. The difficulty is actually a narrative feature, as every minor triumph gives a sense of victory and achievement as you beat impossible odds.
I did write a pretty long post and embed a video on this topic. I have updated that post. All I can do is direct you to it above.
You're trying to make it look like people don't want an easy mode in the game because they want to tell other people how to play. That's a massive straw-man.
The unspoken assumption here is that the normal Dark Souls difficulty won't be impacted. That's isanely unrealistic, it contradicts years of video game history and what happens when games target an audience outside their core fanbase.
I didn't say it would hurt the tension for other people, I said it would kill the tension for me. Being straw-manned as a domineering elitist is pretty much what I expected. But please consider that you are also telling me what my experience should be like. That street goes both ways. Please also consider how this issue affects Dark Souls current fanbase disproportionately. Those unwilling to engage Dark Souls can play anything else. Anything at all. I only have Dark Souls and you're trying to take it away from me, whether you see it that way or not.
"Developer Intentions" are not really what I'm worried about. "You'll get a crappy experience!" is most likely true, and hardly seems like something to overlook. You belittle those viewpoints without presenting any opposing arguments to them, so I can only assume you have none.
It's not being made at all, and for many good reasons. I realllly wanted to be a dick right back to you, but it may have played into the pervasive 'elitist' strawman, so I can't.
Because mods aren't the base game. Mods are effectively cheats for our purposes here. It doesn't bother me that people hack and cheat in single player (online is different kettle of fish, of course).
Same old straw man. Look, it's really not about what other people do. I don't know why that's so hard to believe.
EDIT: Well, there is a shared community aspect to keeping the experience the same for all players, and Dark Souls goes out of it's way to take advantage of that. But I don't think that's what you're talking about.
I resent the implication that my distaste for easy mode in Dark Souls is in any way elitist or exclusionary. If people find the game too frustrating to engage, I find that very unfortunate, but not enough to give up the game I dig so very much.
There's a very simple reason why an easy mode would ruin Dark Souls.
When you're sneaking through a cramped staircase or across an apparently empty courtyad, what are emotions you're probably feeling? Tension. Apprehension. The fear that at any minute the silence may be disrupted by the appearance of some huge beasty with more teeth than a dentist convention.
And when a monster does appear, be it dragon, gargoyle, zombie or whatever. What emotions do you feel then? Probably panic, a sudden fear that this monster has appeared out of nowhere and you're probably going to die very soon. But you know what else you're thinking? You're thinking tactics. As soon as you see that monster, you start analysing the way it moves, how big it is, how it can position itself in the battlefield, what sort of attacks it'll be likely to have, what direction it will be easiest to attack from...
You know who else is thinking these thoughts? Your character.
The reason why Dark Soul's difficulty is such an integral part of the experience is because it forces the player to directly experience the same emotions that their character would be going through. This is something that precious few other RPGs manage to do. Skyrim never got that response from me. Fallout 3 never got that response from me. Playing Dark Souls, the difficulty instils a real sense of responsibility on the player. When the character would be feeling fear or panic, you the player are directly feeling those. Moreover, when the character would be feeling elation from a victory against a huge boss, that is exactly the sense of victory that you experience as the player.
An easy mode would undo that entirely. It would turn the entire immersive experience into just another murder simulator a la Skyrim. Whatever emotions your character should be feeling within the game, you will be divorced from via the complete lack of challenge.
I remember when the rebooted Ninja Gaiden came out for Xbox a few years ago. For ages all anyone would talk about was the ludicrous difficulty. I picked it up, and struggled initially. It was a truly tough game. But I stuck with it, because the game didn't offer an easy mode. Once I got past the first boss, the controls clicked, and I started to get into the game. Before long, I was flipping from walls and slicing people in two with ease.
And you know what? The hard difficulty made the experience so much better. Because all the while I was busy turning people into sushi, there was always in the back of my head the knowledge that just one wrong move, one badly timed combo, one misplaced Ninpo attack, would be enough to get my arse beaten all the way back to the last save point. It sounds masochistic, but the truth is that there is nothing quite as gratifying as overcoming enemies who you know could quite handily carve you up if you gave them the chance. Running into a room, seeing the door lock, and being faced with wave after wave of demons is enough to set the knees trembling. But when you equip a Vigoorian Flail, and come out of that same room five minutes later with your health shot to pieces, you potions all gone, but most importantly having defeated every last demon, there is no other sense of accomplishment like it.
This is the same sense of accomplishment that Dark Souls taps into. The sense that every victory is a true testament to how badass you are, because nothing is given to you easy or cheap. Everything has to be earned.
dark souls is kind of a paradoxon.
it is horrendous bad because it doesnt hint or give you any kind of clue how to defeat an enemy. this is a cheap way to extend the playtime by finding the right way through excessive failure.(it doesnt give you a chance to find the right way to do it/ to find out enemies weakness and strengths)
on the other side it is good since it doesnt restrict you to a certain path.
and it gives you kind of a satisfaction (until you find a cheaper way to defeat them) when you manage to defeat that certain enemy.
so i am against an easy mode but i vouche for some kind of hints on how to get through an area "easier" when you look around carefull enough (and not rely on the messages of other players, 8/10 times its just there for trolling)
Okay well lets assume that the people playing the game currently have already made the jump into the difficulty and are enjoying it. The people who will buy the game may try easy mode or traditional mode, so this can go either way. But the thousands (potentially hundreds of thousands) of people out there who have either given up on the game, or not bought the game entirely because of the difficulty will be given the chance to learn the game we love. This leads to more sales, and believe it or not many people will migrate on to the traditional experience from there.
You argue that you will lose 50% of your players, but I find you to be wrong. This is a illogical statement. There is no evidence that you will lose any players, in fact the evidence shows that you would gain players. So isn't that what you are after? More players?
1: Wrong, there is nothing showing that an easy mode would require a major design change for the normal difficulty. Something as simple as scaling monster damage back is enough to make an "easy" mode. So once again I say this has NO effect on you at all.
2: Once again, we aren't marketing to the people who enjoy challenges here with an easy mode. This mode is not aimed at YOU. It is aimed at bringing more people over to fall in love with the game you say you love. I still fail to see how this is a bad thing. You say it will not provide the same experience, you say its a shitty action RPG. That means with something as simple as a change in damage, you say your beloved game is now shitty. It tells me how invested you actually are in the game itself. I found plenty of story there, sure you had to dig for it and pay attention. But after talking to everyone in the game there is a concurrent thread. You are reliving the actions of the past through your current actions. You get to learn about the downfall of the gods. Where were you during all of this? And, I've only been playing a week.
3: I'm not playing dumb with you. I don't expect easy mode to be a "hardcore experience" as you put it. I expect it to be an introductory difficulty meant to make the game more accessible. Giving players a couple of more hits before they die so they can learn how to fight the enemies. Just because you and I can play at a higher skill level, does not mean all gamers can. Some gamers utilize tactics and not reflex. These players can actually be brilliant Dark Souls players, but the catch is if they don't have the initial reflexes to learn the enemies they won't make it very far before becoming frustrated with the game. You are still arguing under the false assumption that easy mode will require a change to the traditional mode, it would not.
Once again all it would take to make an "EASY" mode would be to scale back the monster damage. Simple, elegant, and effective with no impact on the traditional players.
4: Here we are again assuming things. Can we stop with assumptions? By scaling back monster damage and giving new players an extra hit or two we are not totally destroying monster difficulty. The bosses will still destroy new players until they learn how to dodge their attacks, when to block, and where to attack. I'm not going to continue barking up the same tree, but less damage + no change to traditional mode = what I envision as easy mode.
5: Once again I am in NG++ I don't think I am saying the game is too hard for me anymore. The game takes a different approach from most games and this is exactly why I think there should be an easy mode. The game is brilliantly designed and I love it. I want everyone to experience it, but until they have the breakthrough I did they will never get the joy I do. What you are telling me right now is that you want there to be no easy mode because you enjoy having the bragging rights that you beat a game... a simple trivial game, that even you said many others consider easy... Bravo! I can see why it is such a bad idea to allow From Software to make more money off of an excellent game.
I don't feel tension, I don't get scared when a dragon plops down in front of me, I generally just move forward thinking about how to improve my character (though I do feel a little tension when someone invades me as I'm almost at the boss in a difficult area), and yet I agree with you. The difficulty does make the game better. In both instances you mention, the difficulty made the game better (as evident by Ninja Gaiden 3). But why does an easy mode effect that? A small change in the damage of the monsters would make all the difference in the world to some players. Hell just slapping something called easy mode in the game with no changes other than no pvp would probably make more people play the game. I don't advocate the changing of the core game at all (other than perhaps tightening the controls a bit, the still feel slow to me).
The main reason this is an argument at all is that people ASSUME that From adding a new difficulty will change the core experience, and I just don't think its the case. I do think that some players who could beat the game just fine on traditional mode will play on easy mode thinking "Oh, I just want to see the story" and be disappointed (unless they know where to look), but those players will either quit afterwards or join traditional mode to see what the fuss is about. So... Yay! more net players.
The other people who would use an easy mode are people who otherwise wouldn't play the game. We are talking about more sales for From and (potentially) more players for us on Traditional mode. Win Win situation.
So I've only played a bit of Dark Souls, but can someone explain to me logically how an easy mode would ruin the game for people who won't play on easy mode?
Obviously changing a game's entire direction to an easier approach such as with Elder Scrolls or Splinter Cell is not a good thing at all, but I don't see those scenarios as analogous, because those series are changing core features for every single player to make the game easier, whereas an easy mode only changes some things for individual players who choose it.
Sure you can argue that the players who play on easy mode aren't getting as good an experience as the hardcore players, however dumb that argument is for not understanding subjective tastes and experiences, it's irrelevant to you as a hardcore player anyway.
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Rachel Smith & 1995 Honda Odyssey
In these dire days of $4/gallon gas, the Hook wants to spotlight, if not Charlottesville's flashiest car, perhaps its most efficient.
UVA student Rachel Smith's van may be the closest thing to a bus without being an actual bus.
"It gets great gas mileage, and I can get up to 11 people in this sucker," boasts Smith. "The only drawback I can think of is that more people don't have one."
What her ride lacks in looks it makes up for in muscle.
"Seriously, this van has seen it all," says a somber Smith. "It's been literally covered in bat guano (don't ask), I've run it into a couple of different things and taken it four-wheeling. Once it was the object of a prank war. Enough said."
What drives you? Call 295-8700 ext. 239, then pull up in front of Hook headquarters at 100 Second St. NW and tell us why you love your ride.
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Today Colleen talks with author and founder of People of the Second Chance, Mike Foster.
How did you launch your organization, People of the Second Chance?
What do you do to find peace when you don't have closure from the painful events of your past?
What are the two questions we ask ourselves every day and why are they important?
What is a "friendship bench" and how is it a model for the church?
How can the church lower the guard of looking "perfect"?
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Why is it so important to validate a person's pain?
What is the power of physical touch and why is it essential to healing?
What is one of the largest threats to the health of the church and how can we guard against it?
How does judging others reveal more about ourselves than the object of our criticism?
What do you mean when you say someone who has a broken identity has a broken life?
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compilation in any Netbeans project is easy. You can easily adjust the
build file to use the groovyc compiler. For those of you who do not know
how to do this, simply perform the following:
1) Adjust build.xml by adding the following target:
<target name="-pre-compile">
<groovyc destdir="${classes.dir}"
classpath="${ your.netbeans.groovy.library.classpath}"
jointcompilationoptions="-j -Jsource=1.5 -Jtarget=1.5">
2) Compile your project as normal!
All .groovy files will be compiled into Java...seamless integration. If you
are already using the "-pre-compile" target for another task, then name it
something else and adjust the build-impl.xml accordingly to include the new


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NEW YORK — A battle broke out for control of Wachovia Friday as Wells Fargo signed a $15.1 billion agreement to buy the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank, while Citigroup and the federal regulators backing its earlier deal insisted that Citi's takeover bid go forward.
The surprise announcement early Friday by Wachovia Corp. that it had agreed to be acquired by San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. in the all-stock deal — without government assistance — upended what had appeared to be a carefully examined arrangement and caught regulators off guard.
The Citigroup deal, announced Monday, would have been done with the help of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., but the Wells deal would be done without it. The head of the FDIC said the agency is standing behind the agreement it made with Citigroup Inc.
Citigroup, which demanded that Wachovia call off its deal with Wells Fargo, said its agreement with Wachovia provides that the bank will not enter into any transaction with any party other than Citi or negotiate with anyone else.
Under Wells Fargo's deal, Wachovia shareholders would receive 0.1991 shares of Wells Fargo for every share of Wachovia stock they own, valuing Wachovia at about $7 per share. This is a nearly 80 percent premium over the stock's Thursday closing price of $3.91. Shares closed at $10 last Friday, the last trading session before the deal with Citigroup was announced.
The fight for Wachovia comes in a turbulent time for banks and financial firms as they grapple with the ongoing credit crisis, which led to the recent bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the failure of Washington Mutual Inc.
Wachovia's board approved Wells Fargo's offer late Thursday. The deal is still subject to Wachovia shareholder and other regulatory approvals. Wells Fargo said it expects the deal to close by year-end.
"This deal enables us to keep Wachovia intact and preserve the value of an integrated company, without government support," Robert Steel, Wachovia's president and chief executive, said in a statement.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair said Friday the agency "stands behind its previously announced agreement with Citigroup."
The FDIC will review all proposals and work with the regulators of Wachovia, Citigroup and Wells Fargo "to pursue a resolution that serves the public interest," Bair said.
Bair noted in her statement that "under either proposal, all banking customers of the merged institutions would be fully covered with no disruptions in service."
The Federal Reserve, which has regulatory oversight of the three big banks, said it hasn't had time to review the proposed sale of Wachovia to Wells Fargo but will work to ensure that all creditors and depositors of Wachovia are protected.
In a statement, the Fed said while it and the Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had conducted an extensive review of the Wachovia-Citigroup deal, it had not yet had time to review the new offer from Wells Fargo.
The Fed said regulators will be working with Wachovia and Wells Fargo "to achieve an outcome that protects all Wachovia creditors, including depositors, insured and uninsured, and promotes market stability."
In connection with the agreement, Wachovia is issuing Wells Fargo preferred stock representing 39.9 percent of Wachovia's voting power. This increases the probability that the transaction gets consummated quickly and that Wells Fargo will receive a positive shareholder vote, Wells Fargo said.
Wells Fargo expects to record merger and integration charges of about $10 billion. The bank expects cost-savings of about $5 billion annually, with the majority of cost savings achievable by the end of 2010. No government assistance is part of the deal terms.
Wells Fargo has estimated that the lifetime losses on Wachovia's loan portfolio will total $74 billion. The bank said it expects to incur the majority of credit costs over the next two years, and for the transaction to add meaningfully to earnings after that.
In its planned takeover of Wachovia, Citigroup said it would assume $53 billion worth of debt and agreed to absorb up to $42 billion of losses from Wachovia's $312 billion loan portfolio. The FDIC agreed to cover any remaining losses in exchange for $12 billion in Citigroup preferred stock and warrants.
"Wells' deeper and more considered due diligence has probably revealed fewer risky assets and a larger number of higher valued assets than originally thought," said Anant Sundaram, professor of finance at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "Although it is still too early to tell, this could presage a significant shift in market sentiment toward the value of companies such as Wachovia, and may suggest that there has been an overreaction in the downdraft that we saw in the past few weeks. It is a huge shot in the arm for market confidence. It is also a signal that market forces are capable of resolving some aspects of the crisis without undue Congressional, and hence, taxpayer, intervention."
Wells Fargo plans to issue up to $20 billion of stock, primarily common stock, to maintain a strong capital position.
Charlotte will be the headquarters for the combined company's East Coast retail and commercial and corporate banking business. St. Louis will remain the headquarters of Wachovia Securities.
Additionally, three members of the Wachovia board will join the Wells Fargo board when the transaction is completed.
The combined company will have total deposits of $713 billion and more than 6,500 locations — more than any other bank in the U.S.
In terms of total assets, a combined Wells Fargo-Wachovia would have $1.37 trillion in estimated pro forma assets as of the end of this year. As of June 30, Bank of America Corp. had $2.72 trillion in assets including those of Merrill Lynch & Co., which it is acquiring. Citigroup had $2.10 trillion and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. had about $1.78 trillion, including WaMu's assets.
"This is the transaction that we thought should have been done and makes sense," wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Mike Mayo in a note to clients. "The biggest loser, in our view, is Citi, and we suspect that there is no break-up fee since their agreement with Wachovia was not finalized."
The failure of the government's proposed $700 billion bailout for financial institutions Monday afternoon had cast doubt on whether Citigroup would be able to rid itself of some of Wachovia's bad debt.
While the proposal would have prevented most banks from profiting on the sale of troubled assets to the government, an exception would have been made for assets acquired in a merger or buyout.
That would have allowed Citigroup to sell Wachovia's distressed mortgage-related assets to the government for a profit.
A revised version of the bailout plan was passed on Wednesday by the Senate and by the House in a second vote on Friday afternoon. The plan still centers on enabling the government to spend billions of dollars to buy bad mortgage-related securities and other devalued assets from troubled financial institutions.
Citigroup has not turned a profit for three straight quarters, and lost a total of $17.4 billion during that period after writing down its assets by about $46 billion. That's the most write-downs of any U.S. bank.
While Wells Fargo has logged three straight quarters of profit declines, the bank has been weathering one of the nation's worst credit crises much better than most of its competitors, in part because it had less exposure to the subprime mortgages whose failure undermined the financial sector.
That means it hasn't been forced to take the huge number of write-downs that other banks have needed. Under Stumpf the bank also has continued raising its dividend at a time when many other financial institutions are slashing theirs to preserve capital.
John G. Stumpf, Wells Fargo president and CEO, took over in June 2007 — near the start of the credit crisis — from Dick Kovacevich, who remains chairman. Both men worked since the 1980s at Norwest Corp., Wells Fargo's predecessor.
Wachovia has been a big originator of option adjustable-rate mortgages, which offered very low introductory payments and let borrowers defer some interest payments until later years. Delinquencies and defaults on these types of mortgages have skyrocketed in recent months, causing big losses for the banks.
This summer, Wachovia reported a $9.11 billion loss for the second quarter, announced plans to cut 11,350 jobs — mostly in its mortgage business — and slashed its dividend. Wachovia also boosted its provision for loan losses to $5.57 billion during the second quarter, up from $179 million in the year-ago period.
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